


Bride of the Sea

by deathwailart



Series: The Holy Sea [3]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Character Study, F/M, Gen, Holy Prostitution, Implied Sexual Content, Living Myths, Mythology - Freeform, Pirates, Pregnancy, Sailing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-05
Updated: 2014-09-05
Packaged: 2018-02-16 05:47:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,302
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2258067
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deathwailart/pseuds/deathwailart
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"The night I had you," her mother would tell her once a month, every month until she had left home, "The moon was full, glowing like a great pearl in the night sky and the waves crashed against the shore, some as high as the rooftops and I knew then what you would be. The waves reached for you as did the moon; had you been a boy you would have been the finest Son. But you, you my beautiful girl, you were a girl, you were the moon, my own pearl. The sea had not found simply a daughter that night, he had glimpsed the face of his future Bride." </p>
<p>Or Neria Castell, Bride of the Sea, the sea's embrace made flesh.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Bride of the Sea

"The night I had you," her mother would tell her once a month, every month until she had left home, "the moon was full, glowing like a great pearl in the night sky and the waves crashed against the shore, some as high as the rooftops and I knew then what you would be. The waves reached for you as did the moon; had you been a boy you would have been the finest Son. But you, you my beautiful girl, you were a girl, you were the moon, my own pearl. The sea had not found simply a daughter that night, he had glimpsed the face of his future Bride." She had often told the story before she had gone out herself in the evenings, allowing her daughter to sit on her bed and gaze at her mother's reflection in her beautiful mirror, watching as she painted her lips and lined her eyes, swept powders over her eyelids and her cheeks. She had always kissed her daughter's cheek before she tucked her in, leaving a mark behind that would be gone by the morning. Neria Castell was not simply a daughter of the sea though in truth, like every woman born and to be born she would always be the daughter of the sea, in her blood and in her bones but the sea loved her and she him more than most and so her mother spoke the truth. She is the moon's daughter, she is a pearl, she is the one the sea reaches for but cannot and so she gives of herself all that she can so that the sea might know a wife's embrace. And so she carries it with her wherever she goes.  
  
"I am the sea's Bride."  
  
She is Neria Castell and she is tall, almost as tall as her father, her mother barely to her shoulder before she is even halfway through her teen years. Her hair is long and dark, thick curls the blue-black of squid's ink and she wears it in all the latest fashions and suits every one of them though she likes it best when it's down and she can wind it around her fingers or allow a lover's hands to comb through it as she tips her head back and sighs. She has a face most would say hints at nobility, long, high cheeks, an elegant nose and full mouth, big brown eyes that she lines with black and gold, the richest purples, silvers and every shade of blue and green. Her eyes are not the colour of the sea but yet they are. Her mouth is made for smiling, even when she thinks her lips curve upward at the corners, painted carefully to make them look as full as possible, to shimmer when the light touches them. She glints and gleams like a pearl, like the moon. She has skin as dark as her father's, brown and soft, a smattering of freckles across her shoulders that everyone seems to love. But then again, they all love her, every single inch of her down to her laugh and the way she wrinkles her nose when she giggles. She wears corsets and long gowns or shimmering dresses cut low at the front and back, strands of pearls at her throat and at her ears, her wrists, her fingers, even the delicate little buttons on her dresses. At times she is in blues and greens, greys and whites, she wears the sea, wraps herself in it. Other times she is soft corals and the darting dazzling fish that catch the eye, the heart of the sea, his bounty. She is the sea's wife and it is why the calling chooses her, if such a thing can be said though she cannot imagine another way. She loves the sea, she always has, she loves him with her heart and soul and body.  
  
Castileos has always believed in the freedom of choice and to make your way through life as you will. She attends each religious gathering as do almost all folk, in their holy buildings built from the bones of old ships and whales alike, the smell of brine thick enough to taste, praying before the altars of figureheads carved like members of the mercourt and more, the eyes of ships reclaimed. There are the consorts in her home, those who sell their body and companionship for coin, consorts of the merlings, mermaids or mercourt, each with their skills but the women are not Brides. To be a Bride is to be the sea's embrace made flesh.  
  
Her mother was a teacher when Neria was growing up, her father an artist and so she has always loved to learn and it is no different when she becomes a Bride. Not simply the carnal acts once she is of age though she enjoys that too, loses herself in the act with her teachers, both other Brides and consorts, but the lessons on poetry and art, on conversation, reading between the lines and the set of shoulders, the look in someone's eyes. It's more than just sex and to make someone feel good for a time, to help them to forget. The touch of a Bride is to heal in mind, body and soul, to offer the embrace of the sea in the way the sea cannot, to enfold someone in her arms to let them feel her warmth, to whisper in their ear all that they need to hear and she knows what a great privilege it is to be able to provide in such a way as she remembers the story her mother told her as a girl, a story she tells so many of the people who come to her, especially the Sons who will leave their ships and come to the house she calls her home with so many other Brides.  
  
_Once almost all the world was water_ , so the story goes, _but the sea lay still and quiet, flat and smooth as a mirror unless the merfolk swam and when whales and dolphins breached the surface. There were fish and whales and sharks, there were great reefs, there were so many things beneath the surface that perhaps none of us shall see the likes of again. Some had already left the sea_ , so the story continues, _to live on the land near the water's edge where we built ships but what good is a ship when the world is so still? No one could go anywhere, no one could learn from one another, they could hardly make a life. And so one mermaid, larger than all the rest, wrapped herself in sea foam and swam. It was said that she was dark as the night sky but she shimmered all along her tail and down her back and arms. Her tail would wrap halfway around the world and when she moved, she formed the greatest of waves but it was never enough. The other denizens of the sea, observing her labours, they brought shells and swam alongside her to help to raise her higher and higher until at last she rose as a bird might, high above the waves where the sky met the sea. Beneath her came some jellyfish, the ones from the depths who were swept up in her wake and so she set them high in the sky with her, so she might not be alone. They remain with her still, her companions._ This is the point where all who tell the tale will pause, will swallow and collect themselves. _The sea was lost without her, churned into a great fury that threatened to cover all the land until she reached out and he followed her. Her sea foam cushion turned hard as a pearl in the cold night sky and he called her the moon. But no matter how close she seemed to drift nor how high the sea grew, they would never touch. But she made the waves. Her sacrifice, sundering herself from the sea, gave us life the sea could not but did all the same because she was the sea too._  
  
It is a solemn story, one that brings tears and joy. They all understand that they will be reclaimed. That all of them once came from the sea though so many in other lands have forgotten this fact but for Brides it is something more; they might come close, might offer the embrace of the sea with their bodies but they must always be parted in time. They must leave their path and forsake their vows – in time, when they are older, many will, will find someone to be with for their twilight years – but they are married to the sea and must place nothing above their calling. She is warned about temptation by her teachers and elders but she does not think it will come the first time she departs Castileos.  
  
She is a new Bride, her training ended, when she meets Felix Bonaventura. She does not pick him as such but she sees him, a new young captain, brown skinned with his curly black hair, his neat beard and moustache, his warm grin and so she watches him at the docks. He laughs with his crew, jokes and plays games of dice and when she introduces herself he bows deeply and kisses her hand, lavishes praise upon her and anyone should for it is clear she is a bride by the seahorse pendant tight around her throat but there's a sincerity in his eyes, in the soft inhalation of breath when he first sees her and how he forgets how to speak for a moment. By the end of the day her passage is arranged and she bids goodbye to her mother and father with their proud tears, to her sisters in the brothel and takes Felix by the elbow as he escorts her aboard the ship, the crew all bowing when she steps aboard. She delights in learning all the crew and sits with a different person each night to learn a new story, a new skill, learns knots and whistles and shanties, soothes them in whatever way they need and holds them close to her, whispering that the sea is here, the sea loves them, the sea will always be with them. They are fiercely devoted, most from Castileos but some from other lands, afraid to touch her sometimes, shy and tentative as though she might disappear until she steadies them, guides them. They learn that beneath all her trappings she is a woman with wit as sharp as their blades and before one of them can step in to defend her at the first foreign port, she has done it herself and learns of the look on the face of the man who insulted her when the crew return and tell her that he _at last_ understood her words.  
  
She is not to have a favourite but she remembers that the moon loved the sea more than anything else and it comes as no surprise that she loves Felix more than all the rest. She delights in spending time with him whatever way she can. They play cards and dice, he tells her of the fantastic things he has glimpsed and all the ports he has ever visited. He shows her how to steer a ship, his chest against her back, his hands around hers on the wheel so she learns the rolling and rocking of a ship the way she learned arching backs and sighs. They spend hours alone in his cabin or out on the deck when he tells her of his life and though it is not a requirement for her to come home with a pearl in her belly, especially not her first time away but she can't help but picture it, a little girl with her angular features, his curls and his smile, his love and lust for life, her faith.  
  
It is a marriage of sorts. She is a Bride of the Sea and he a Son and so he _is_ the sea and is a marriage not meant to be fruitful?  
  
It is night when she prays alone on the deck, Felix in his cabin awaiting her the way she told him to. Her seahorse pendant is tight about her throat as she recites a prayer for fertility. _As you gave me life, gave him life, gave us life, as you flow through our veins_ , she thinks as she pours salt water over her head, kneeling at the foremost part of the ship, the moon full above her. _Let it be our child for he is the sea and I am the moon, let us give you a new son or daughter with the sea in their blood, let them swim before they walk._ She pours water over her breasts, letting it soak through the fabric of her gown, pours it over her belly where a child might grow if the sea gives his blessing. Over her head again until her hair is soaked as if she has risen from the sea and then walks with her head held high to her small cabin where she dresses in a thin shift woven of silk, drapes strings of pearls and shells around her neck and wrists and ankles and in her hair. She lines her eyes in deepest blue and silver, paints her lips a deep purple, so dark it's almost black and dabs perfume at her wrists, behind her ears, on her throat and down between her breasts before she pads silently to Felix's cabin where he's reclining, reading a book in the guttering lamplight.  
  
She pushes him to lie flat, tells him to be still and guides his hands from her shoulders to cup her breasts, his thumbs rubbing circles around her nipples through the shift and then down, down to her belly where she holds them, recites the prayer to the moon as he prays to the sea.  
  
"Neria," he murmurs but she kisses him, breaking apart only long enough for him to remove her shift and to help him undress until he is bare before her.  
  
"You are the sea tonight," she tells him as she sinks down and he groans low in the back of his throat. "I am your wife."  
  
One hand goes to the small of her back to steady her, the other reaching up to touch the pendant with wonder in his eyes. "You look like you come from another world," he whispers and she smiles before gasping as he rolls his hips, letting her head fall back.  
  
"I did," she tells him, sure because she is, because she did, rising up on her knees. The moonlight paints the cabin, glinting off her wet hair, the pearls wrapped around her, the soft smooth insides of the shells and she is lost.  
  
They lie curled together after, her hand over his on her belly, her other hand clutched tight around the seahorse pendant.  
  
In time her belly swells and the crew celebrate. They cook the largest fish and give her the freshest bread, they make plans to stop at a port to find the freshest milk and cream to celebrate the way they should. Each member of the crew in turn kneels to kiss the barely there curve, to whisper a prayer. She hasn't stopped smiling since that night, not since the moon rose and hid once then twice with no blood to be seen, even the sickness that struck her she took in stride, remaining coy until she was sure. She tells them all upon the deck because this is how it should be, this child does not belong to one man, this child does not even belong to her, her child is the sea's child but they'll grow and slumber beneath her heart, even if two of them have no doubt as to the father. Felix is proud, yet almost shy, awestruck when she finally comes to stand beside him at the wheel once he announces that they're setting course for Castileos, waiting for the unspoken permission to touch her.  
  
His big hand cups her belly and she smiles. "We serve the sea, the sea is fruitful and gives us life."  
  
She did not expect to be so sorely tempted on her first voyage. She did not expect to fall in love with life on the waves or to find the sea made flesh in the way Felix is. Again she spends more time with him but as captain he is to sea to the comfort of a Bride and so he does, solicitous in every touch as her body changes and she needs more help to lie down or to rise, when he does his best to satisfy each and every craving she might have and when he dances slowly with her on the deck, her belly between them on nights their child is restless and keeps Neria from sleep.  
  
"Have the baby at sea," Felix says when they lie alone together. A few more days until they reach Castileos if the fair winds continue and the seas give them no trouble. A few more days again until she gives birth.  
  
"I can't; she's my daughter, not yours, not yet. The sea is her father." She could see a life. A life of her and Felix but she would no longer be a Bride. She thinks of the moon and how she reaches for the sea and how Felix has never gone farther on land than the port or the docks, how he sleeps on the ship each night and has any man ever embodied the sea as he does?  
  
"I understand," he replies and he does, she knows that and she is glad when he moves down the bed to talk to her belly, tracking the little hand or foot that presses out because then he can't see the tears in her eyes, tears of joy that she has this, that he does understand, that he respects the choice she has made. Tears for a possibility never to be.  
  
Felix gives her a ring when they part, after the crew have said their goodbyes for now to wish her well, a thin silver band shaped like a mermaid, a great shining pearl clutched between the fins of her tail and her hands and she is lost and she is found, cupping his chin in her hands as she kisses him chastely. "Fair winds and fair tides Felix Bonaventura," she says as is custom.  
  
"To you as well, Neria Castell," he replies before he hesitates, looking down and away, an almost laugh escaping him as if it will hide his nerves. "Will you let me meet her?" He asks, so sure that this child is a girl and Neria has no reason to doubt him because he is a Son, he is the sea and he knows it well.  
  
"Of course." He won't be there for the birth, she knows that, she knows he has never slept a night on land. "She'll know who you are, she should spend time on the sea as you did."  
  
His smile is the sun breaking through the clouds, the calm after a storm. Even greater when days later she makes her way to the docks with their daughter in her arms, Araceli, Araceli who calms in his arms and aboard his ship in a way she doesn't always on land, Araceli who is every star in the sky reflected back upon the waves they once belonged to. Daughter of the sea and his Bride.  
  
_The waves reached for me, as did the moon_ , she thinks, always. _I am the sea's Bride_ , she remembers, always.

**Author's Note:**

> This goes hand in hand with the previous character study, Son of the Sea which discusses after the pregnancy in more detail than this.


End file.
